Pastors Notes from January 4, 2024
-
February 5, 2024An update on some of the upkeep and maintenance for our parish buildings and grounds. Over the course of the last seven months various projects have taken place at St. Malachy, upgrading our facilities. New church signs were designed and installed. On the church exterior the trim around the building was repainted, gutters replaced, roof repair over the sacristy and hall completed, dead trees removed on the east side of our property. Updating the kitchen, a new freezer was bought, new dishwasher installed, tinted window installed with the east kitchen door to be replaced. A new classroom space was constructed for our Good Shepherd Religious Ed. Program.
HVAC system was replaced for the church, hall and classrooms as the old unit was malfunctioning and beyond repair. Sometime in the spring or early summer our worn and weather damaged parish hall roof will be replaced with a metal product. Total costs for all the repairs, improvements, and upgrades will run close to $210,000 and will be covered with the investments St. Malachy has accrued over the years. St. Malachy continues to welcome parishioners and visitors from our local community of Madrid and from the surrounding towns; a gracious sign of our Christian hospitality.
At Sacred Heart School a new roof will be installed over a section of the school as the condition of the present roof has deteriorated. Donations and investments will cover the cost and installation will begin according to the contractor’s schedule. To compliment the security of our school building the last of the old style doors will be replaced, meeting code and safety expectations.
Last summer the second floor windows of our parish office were replaced, completing the project started a year ago, upgrading the building’s energy efficiency and dignity. Costs were covered by memorials and a generous financial gift. A week ago our heating system within the church stopped functioning on a Friday morning. When the unit was looked at for repairs, the main boiler was deemed nonfunctional, leaving the smaller unit to heat the entire church. And that boiler is on “its last leg,” not sustainable into the future. Hopefully it will carry us through winter.
A new unit will need to be installed sometime in the spring after the design and efficiency has been studied and finalized. Sacred Heart investments will cover the costs once the proper design and materials and installation is completed. At Sacred Heart Cemetery ongoing improvements to maintain the dignity of our grounds will be covered by the generosity of different individuals.
St. John’s grounds and buildings continue to be maintained with a recent repair on a blown water pipe. No serious damage, just an added awareness of the upkeep needed. Lizzie Kenkel will live in the rectory building until she enters the convent in late summer. She is working with our Youth Ministry program and Religious Education. Snow removal takes place when required, and the church and cemetery grounds are mowed and maintained in the summer.
We are blessed with the generosity of investments to aid in the needed maintenance and upgrades of our parish facilities, and the kindness and sacrifices of parishioners who volunteer their time and abilities to help out.
In our gospel passage from St. Mark: “Rising very early before dawn, Jesus left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.” How long he prayed and what words he spoke is left unanswered from this account. We are left to consider how prayer, whenever or wherever, involves quieting one’s mind and heart. Wherever we find our “deserted place,” the act of silencing or calming our mind and spirit seems to be the pinnacle of opening ourselves to the presence of God. Thomas Keating, the Benedictine spiritual writer, grasps the significance of such a deserted place: “Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.” Elaborating on Keating’s thoughts on silence, the seventh century monk, Isaac of Nineveh, describes it with more intensity:
“Silence will illuminate you in God. . .and deliver you from phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God. . . .In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then from our very silence is born something that draws us into deeper silence.”
Quite possibly the monastery would afford us greater access and space for silence, but one needn’t be a monk to find sacred silence. Mother Teresa hints of the possibilities silence affords us in our daily endeavors: “Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere — in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.” Finding our ‘deserted place’ to pray, regardless of the time of day may be as simple and complete as sitting down, turning off the electronics, making the Sign of the Cross, and simply being present for a minute or two, or five, ten, or longer. Making the Sign of the Cross is a prayer onto itself, but more succinctly, inviting God into your heart, your thoughts, your silence.
God Bless, Fr. Tim
FYI: “I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the colour and fragrance of a flower – the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.” (Helen Keller)
